{"id":33778,"date":"2014-10-09T14:07:51","date_gmt":"2014-10-09T18:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=33778"},"modified":"2015-03-20T09:24:45","modified_gmt":"2015-03-20T13:24:45","slug":"wright-state-university-researcher-discovers-destructive-emerald-ash-borer-may-have-spread-to-a-different-tree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2014\/10\/09\/wright-state-university-researcher-discovers-destructive-emerald-ash-borer-may-have-spread-to-a-different-tree\/","title":{"rendered":"Wright State researcher finds emerald ash borer may have spread to different tree"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Biology<\/a>

Wright State biology professor Don Cipollini suspects that the emerald ash borer, which is destroying ash trees in a large part of the country, has spread to a different tree.<\/p><\/div>\n

The emerald ash borer, which is destroying ash trees in a large swath of the nation, has spread to a different tree, a researcher at Wright State University suspects.<\/p>\n

Biology professor Don Cipollini, Ph.D., director of the Environmental Sciences Ph.D. Program<\/a>, has found that the invasive green beetle has begun to attack white fringetree.<\/p>\n

White fringetree is native to the United States and grows wild from New Jersey south to Florida and west to Oklahoma and Texas. It is also a growingly popular ornamental tree that has been planted in other parts of the country, including Ohio.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that emerald ash borer is eating more than ash trees,\u201d Cipollini said. \u201cIt may have a wider host range than we ever thought in the first place, or it is adapting to utilize new hosts. This biological invasion is really something to worry about. It\u2019s having drastic ecological and economic consequences, and you can\u2019t always predict what\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Native to Asia, emerald ash borer was introduced to the United States near Detroit in 2002. It is believed to have been in ash wood used to stabilize crates during shipping.<\/p>\n

So far, the insect has spread in all directions, killed tens of millions of ash trees and threatens to kill most of the 8.7 billion ash trees throughout North America. It is estimated that the borer will have caused $10 billion in economic damage by 2019.<\/p>\n

The borers attack trees by laying their eggs on the bark. The serpentine feeding galleries of the larvae inside the bark disrupt the flow of nutrients and water and starve the tree.<\/p>\n

\"Biology<\/a>

Don Cipollini, who has studied emerald ash borer for nearly 10 years, presented his findings to government officials and researchers at an emerald ash borer research review meeting Oct. 15.<\/p><\/div>\n

There are efforts to try to save ash trees from the borer. Pesticides can be injected into the trunk or poured into the soil around the tree and taken up by the roots. And there have been releases of parasitoid wasps, whose larvae kill the borer larvae.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s hard to stop this thing because the borer has reached such high densities,\u201d Cipollini said. \u201cAnd it is now spreading to parts of the country where white fringetree grows.\u201d<\/p>\n

White fringetree, a relative of ash, is a deciduous shrub or small tree that can grow up to 30 feet tall. It has white flowers and a purple, olive-like fruit. It is known for its relative lack of pest and disease problems and has never been reported as a host to wood borers related to emerald ash borer.<\/p>\n

Cipollini, who has studied emerald ash borer for nearly 10 years in his position at the Dayton, Ohio university, has been working with colleagues to come up with new strains of ash trees that would be resistant to the insect. With colleagues and students, he has co-authored seven publications on the insect, with several others in review or preparation.<\/p>\n

He discovered that borers were also attacking white fringetree in August when he acted on a hunch.<\/p>\n

Cipollini was examining some white fringetrees that had been planted by the Yellow Springs Tree Committee near his home in the southwestern Ohio village when he spotted a telltale borer exit hole with the characteristic \u201cD\u201d shape on one of the trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked up to the tree, saw the hole right in front of my eyes and said, \u2018Oh my gosh, there it is,\u2019\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n

He got permission from the committee to peel back the bark, discovered what appeared to be the typical feeding gallery of emerald ash borer and determined that attacks on this tree had begun at least two years earlier. He later found similar infestations in another white fringetree in Yellow Springs, one at Cox Arboretum in Dayton and one at Ferncliff Cemetery in Springfield.<\/p>\n

Cipollini collected the larvae, took them back to his lab and put them under the microscope. The larvae were consistent with those of emerald ash borer \u2013 from the bifurcation of the pronotal groove to the abdominal segments becoming increasingly trapezoidal. Later Cipollini was able to exhume part of a dead adult beetle from the tree that failed to emerge two years ago.<\/p>\n

He then sent a larva and the adult specimen to experts at the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), arms of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The experts agreed that critical morphological features of both the larva and the adult match those of emerald ash borer. Importantly, the adult he found proved to be male, which is essential for a positive identification.<\/p>\n

APHIS, which investigates invasive species that impact agriculture, horticulture and forestry, would be the agency that would quarantine white fringetree to try to control the spread of the borer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWild populations of this tree, along with horticultural specimens, are now seemingly under threat like ash trees are, but work on these questions remain,\u201d Cipollini said.<\/p>\n

He quickly wrote up a short paper on his discovery and sent it to the Journal of Economic Entomology, one of the Entomological Society of America\u2019s main publications. Cipollini then presented his findings to APHIS officials and researchers at an emerald ash borer research review meeting on the Wooster campus of The Ohio State University on Oct. 15.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am grateful to be in a position at Wright State University that affords me the academic freedom to explore,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you have an interesting question and can find the appropriate resources, you can study it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dan Herms, professor of entomology at Ohio State, said Cipollini’s discovery is significant.<\/p>\n

“It’s the first time the emerald ash borer has been found colonizing another species than ash,” Herms said.<\/p>\n

Cipollini said that if the emerald ash borer destroys white fringetree, the birds, insects and other wildlife dependent on the tree\u2019s leaves and fruit may also be threatened.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of these unexpected consequences of biological invasions,\u201d he said. \u201cEven when you think you have a handle on something and you understand what it does and what it may cause, these kinds of surprises pop up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cipollini said the threat to white fringetree is the latest example of the narrowing of the plant ecosystem, which provides humans with such things as fuel, water purification and erosion control.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt gets harder and harder for Mother Nature to handle that for us as you further and further reduce the pool of species that are present and their abundance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wright State biology professor Don Cipollini finds that the emerald ash borer has apparently spread to white fringetree in the United States. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":33784,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2064,2067,2023,2060,715,18,746],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-biology","category-environmental-sciences-ph-d","category-faculty","category-graduate","category-news","category-research","category-science-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33778"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33778\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33863,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33778\/revisions\/33863"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}